“How can I find groups of people with same interests as mine in Toronto?”, O. S. asked me today. “You are an expert in groups” she continued, “since you already organized some”.
Thanks for having the courage to ask, O.S. It’s the first step toward finding what you want!
As a newly proclaimed expert in groups 🙂 I would like to ask you first: What are your interests?
Without having more details, all I can do is to give you 9 general ideas:
1. Meetup.com: search for keywords like Toronto and your interests, and you’ll find many groups to choose from. They usually meet once a month and you’ll meet friendly people in such groups, ready to network with others with similar interests.
2. Create your own meetup group, according to what you’re looking for. The meetup.com website will send a notification to all the meetup members that a new meetup was created, and those who are attracted by the description of your group will become members. Then you can schedule meetup events for your group, to meet them. The website is very easy to use, and allows RSVP, calendar, member’s forum, etc.
3. If you’re interested in groups related to a certain profession, look for professional associations and attend their events. Or participate in the forum discussions, if they have one on their website. Or ask other professionals in the same field, what groups they know in that field.
4. Based on your interests, ask your friends and colleagues if they know any group of people with the same interests or to give you suggestions where to find them.
5. You can join any group or attend any event, and ask people there if they could recommend you a group of people with those interests.
6. Of course, our friend Google could help too.
7. If you are on Linkedin, search for Linkedin groups based on the keyword “Toronto”, join those groups, than start a discussion on this topic. You might be surprised that people do respond.
8. Linkedin has specialized groups as well, search for them and join them. Participate in discussions and connect with the people that you’re interested in. And take those connections out of the virtual world, whenever you feel comfortable. I encourage sooner, than later, because sometimes our imagination could create an image that’s different than reality… you might not want to wait too much to find out.
9. Same on facebook. 🙂
Next time you’ll ask a question, O.S., please be more specific if you’d like to receive a more detailed answer. 🙂
If you read this post and have other suggestions for O.S., please add them here.
Thanks,
Gabriela
ThoughtsDesigner.com